


i am missing you to death

by cosmicpoet



Series: momoharu week 2019 [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Drugs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Long-Distance Friendship, pregame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Maki and Kaito meet in a server for fans of Danganronpa Series 52.





	i am missing you to death

**DANGANRONPA SERVER**

**~RULES~  
** _**1\. Be respectful!**_  
_**2\. No real life murders.**_  
_**3\. State your SHSL talent upon entering. If yours is taken, choose another! Mods will assign you a personal role tag based on your talent.**_  
_**4\. State your name, pronouns, and age in the introductions channel. Only after this will you be allowed access to the whole server.**_  
_**5\. Discussion of the controversial Series 27 must be kept in the S27 channel.**_

→ HarukawaMaki just joined the server - glhf!

_< HarukawaMaki> _I’m Maki, I’m 20 years old, she/her pronouns. Are there any SHSL Resurrectionists around?

_< MOD JUNKO: ~JunkoEnoshima420~> _yeah we got a shsl resurrectionist, sorry

_< HarukawaMaki> _Oh. You got SHSL Necromancer?

_< MOD JUNKO: ~JunkoEnoshima420~> _nope that’s free! i’ll add ur tag now

_< SHSL NECROMANCER> _So, you guys caught up with last night’s ep?

_< SHSL STREET FIGHTER> _ye boi rantaro lookin FINE

_< SHSL NECROMANCER> _You think he did it?

_< SHSL STREET FIGHTER> _obviously?????

_< SHSL NECROMANCER> _No?? It’s like the second murder, he’s smart. If he’s going to murder anyone, he’ll do it Chapter Five at least.

_< SHSL STREET FIGHTER> _what makes u the expert, newbie??

_< SHSL NECROMANCER> _You act like you’re scared of logic.

_< SHSL STREET FIGHTER> _u wanna take this private????? idiot

_< SHSL NECROMANCER> _Go on then, coward.

_< MOD KAMUKURA: xXDespairDrivenXx> _Kaito, you’ve already got two strikes for taking things irl.

_< SHSL STREET FIGHTER> _i’ll handle this bro! stay out ffs

→ FightMeKaito has sent HarukawaMaki a friend request.

→ HarukawaMaki has accepted.

_< FightMeKaito> _so u think ur a danganronpa expert huh??

_< HarukawaMaki> _I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

_< FightMeKaito> _how many shsl detectives there been??

_< HarukawaMaki> _Thirteen. Fourteen if you count the fake SHSL Detective who turned out to be the SHSL Framer.

_< FightMeKaito> _ok……thats an easy google but sure

_< HarukawaMaki> _You realise I don’t have to prove myself to you?

_< FightMeKaito> _sounds like something someone who doesn’t know dr would say tbh

_< HarukawaMaki> _Each sentence you say makes your username make more and more sense. You just looking for a fight?

_< FightMeKaito> _why, u gonna give me one??

_< HarukawaMaki> _No.

_< FightMeKaito> _aight but like why u think rantaro didn’t do it?

_< HarukawaMaki> _It’s actually impossible if you look at the time of the murder. It took place after nighttime began, right? But then in the morning before the body discovery announcement, someone (I forget who) was complaining that Rantaro’s snoring kept them up all night. So it’s only logical to assume he was asleep.

_< FightMeKaito> _he could have been playin a tape of snoring sounds or something to throw them off the case??

_< HarukawaMaki> _They would have found a CD player or something like that, if that were true. Besides, it’s an unlikely alibi, and not something he could have relied on as solid ‘proof’ that he was in his room. It relies on the people next door to him a) hearing the snores and b) being light sleepers.

_< FightMeKaito> _ig we’ll see when they air the class trial in an hour

_< HarukawaMaki> _When I’m proven right, you owe me a drink.

_< FightMeKaito> _where u even live??

_< HarukawaMaki> _Shimane.

_< FightMeKaito> _guess ur too far away for me to buy u a drink :( im from tokyo but i moved to nz to live w my grandparents a few years back

_< HarukawaMaki> _How come you moved?

_< FightMeKaito> _my parents died

_< HarukawaMaki> _Oh. Sorry.

_< FightMeKaito> _ye it sucks but what can ya do?

_< HarukawaMaki> _Were they nice?

_< FightMeKaito> _my parents??

_< HarukawaMaki> _Yes.

_< FightMeKaito> _ye i guess.. i never got on w em very well but i guess i romanticise the past now theyre gone

_< HarukawaMaki> _I never knew mine.

_< FightMeKaito> _oof

_< HarukawaMaki> _Do you want to voice call when the episode airs?

_< FightMeKaito> _ya sound that could be fun. if ur free now lets call and discuss our thoughts before it starts too

→ HarukawaMaki is calling…

“Yo!”

“Hey, is my mic working?” Maki says.

“Yeah, I hear you! You got me?”

“Yeah.”

“So, uh, I’m Kaito.”

“Maki.”

“Sorry for, uh, kinda…going off on you back there.”

“SHSL Street Fighter sounds like an appropriate title for you.”

“What’s the SHSL Necromancer shit about?”

“I mean…reanimating corpses, bringing people back from the dead at _my_ will. It’s, like, complete freedom of choice and control.”

“Yeah, but it’s not real though, is it?”

“It’s Danganronpa. Anything can be real.”

“Oh, yeah. Fair.”

“So do you get in many fights?”

“Yeah.”

“Like a hobby?”

“More like…protecting my business.”

“Business? What, is it drugs?”

“Yeah. Xans and codeine mainly. My grandparents run a pharmacy so I got good supply.”

“I knew someone who overdosed on Xanax once.”

“Was it cut with fentanyl?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t stick around.”

“You got a good stream for the episode?”

“Yeah. I can put it on a rabb.it if you like.”

“Sound, all the streams that you get in New Zealand are fuckin’ low qual as _shit.”_

“You’d think they’d have better streaming services, considering how many people watch it.”

“Yeah, it’s annoying as fuck.”

“I sent you the link. It’s starting in five.”

The call falls silent as the Danganronpa Series 52 intro music blasts through Maki’s headphones. It gets straight into the thick of the class trial, and she finds herself mesmerised by how quickly and succinctly Rantaro gathers all the evidence together, presenting a solid case for the killer. Although he’s wrong on his first try, he corrects himself before anyone else can, leaving the trial room in silence after an hour and a half, most of which he spent carrying the rest of them through the investigation and evidence.

“Go on, get her!” Kaito shouts. Maki switches tabs from the stream to the call, half-hoping that Kaito had turned his camera on midway through the episode. It still only shows both of their icons, and she switches back just in time to watch the reveal of the murderer.

“This is the best part,” she says.

“Yeah, I love the executions.”

The show goes off for an ad break.

“I wonder how they’re gonna kill her?” Kaito says.

“Well,” she replies, “she’s the SHSL Diver, so…maybe they’re gonna drown her?”

“That’d be boring. I want something more exciting than that!”

“I mean, she’s dying either way. That’s the bit that gets me. Not how they do it, but the fact that they’re doing it. They’re killing people for our entertainment.”

“It sounds fucked up when you say it like that.”

“It is. That’s why we watch it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Hold up - it’s coming back on!”

Maki watches as the SHSL Diver is dragged off-screen. When she appears again, she’s been fitted with a tank on her back and a mask over her face. Monokuma whips her around to show the cameras that the tank is running low on oxygen; the words _‘NITROGEN NARCOSIS’_ flash on screen, lighting up in neon like the top prize on a slot machine. Rocks are tied to her feet as she’s pushed into a deep tank of water, and the camera follows her down. She thrashes around for a few minutes, trying to swim back to the surface, but the rocks are tied tightly and she can’t move upwards at all. A screen above the tank displays a point-of-view livestream of what she’s seeing, although it’s edited to show the audience the hallucinations that she’s likely having. Suddenly, the screen goes black, and focus jumps back again to the SHSL Diver, as piranhas and sharks begin to circle her body; her eyes go wide and wild, and she tries even more desperately to get to the surface. Within moments, they’ve descended on her, and she’s torn apart, leaving only blood in the water.

“Man, that was _brutal,”_ Kaito says, “the best one yet!”

“Inventive, too. I mean, she was hallucinating, right? Can you imagine hallucinating _and_ being eaten alive? Fuck.”

“Shit, is it wrong for me to want to go on the show even more after this?”

“Is it wrong for me to agree with you?”

“I should go. It’s nearly midnight over here.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry for keeping you up.”

“Bullshit. I would’a been awake anyway watching the episode. But hey, let’s do this again sometime?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

Over the next month, it becomes routine for them to watch each episode of Danganronpa together. As the days pass, they start their voice calls earlier and end them later, talking to each other about their lives, their aspirations - which all seem to be Danganronpa related - and how much they wish they lived closer.

It’s an unlikely friendship, but it’s the only one either of them have got.

When the series ends, Maki worries that their daily calls will end, too. But immediately after the finale airs, Kaito says ‘see you tomorrow!’, like it’s natural, like he never even spared a thought for the harrowing idea that this would be the end of their friendship.

The next day, he proposes a question.

“What if we video called?”

“I…yeah, sure,” she says, nervously, “but be warned, I’m hardly attractive.”

“Bet ya a drink you are.”

“How many drink bets have you lost to me now? At this rate we kinda _have_ to meet up, just so you can pay your debts.”

“Alright, I’m turning my camera on.”

“Me too.”

She waits for his screen to load, excited to see what he looks like. She has a picture of him in her head - he’s told her he has purple hair, and she imagines it to be short and clean cut. For some reason, she pictures him with red eyes, just like hers, although she doesn’t know why she’s starting to see parts of herself in him.

What she does see is wildly different to how she imagined him. But in that instant, she wouldn’t change a thing about him. 

He’s got what she assumes to be chin-length purple hair, messily tied in a short ponytail. His eyes are purple, too, but they’re just as wild as she’d pictured them.

“Holy shit,” he says, “you’re like…mad hot.”

“Shut up!”

“No, for real. Damn, Maki. Where you been hiding that?”

“Behind voice call, idiot.”

“Seriously. Damn. Shit. Man, you really got it goin’ on!”

“Stop it!” _(Or I’ll start blushing…)_

“I wish we could meet in real life,” he says.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Flights are so damn expensive to Japan.”

“There’s always…never mind.”

“No, go on.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Say it anyway.”

“If you apply to Danganronpa…and if you get an interview…they’ll fly you out here.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. I heard of it being done before. You gotta do video interviews first, but if they think you have real promise, they’ll pay for you to fly out here for the final round of interviews.”

“Oh, shit! I’m doing that! Like, right now.”

“Think it through! There’s no going back once you’ve applied.”

“It’s what I’ve wanted forever!”

“It’s your life, though. It’s one thing to watch it on TV, but to live it…”

“C’mon, Maki Roll, I wouldn’t die anyway! I’d be protagonist or somethin’.”

“Well, if you’re applying…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Then I am too.”

“Really? You could die. I don’t want you to.”

“I don’t want you to die either, but someone’s gotta be in that game to protect your ass.”

“I guess it’s done then.”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

Half a year later, she’s waiting anxiously in the airport by the arrivals gate. Her fears aren’t to do with Danganronpa, or the interviews that they’ll both have tomorrow - she’s worried that when he sees her for the first time in real life, he’ll hate her.

But then he comes through the gate. Takes his sunglasses off. Smiles. Runs towards her.

They’re hugging so hard that they fall to the floor and stay there for a moment, not letting each other go even for a second. It’s only when there’s a tap on Kaito’s shoulder that they both look up.

A woman in an official Team Danganronpa t-shirt stands over them.

“Your hotel is booked,” she says to Kaito, “and we’ll see you _both_ tomorrow.”

No going back now.

**Author's Note:**

> #momoharuweek2019 day three; the prompt I chose was 'long distance'.
> 
> Title from 'Such Great Heights' by Iron and Wine.


End file.
